The UK’s Project Aurora is complete
posted on 25th Oct 2025 08:43
Over the past five years, engineers at the Selhurst Depot (in South London) have been hard at work completing the UK’s biggest train upgrade project covering 1,222 carriages across Southern, Gatwick Express & Great Northern services.
On 14 October 2025, the 304th Electrostar EMU in the scheme - known as Project Aurora - rounded off the programme which has completed on-time and on-budget. Millions of passengers in South East England have benefited from an Alstom-facilitated 100 million GBP project. The final unit - Southern’s 387 305 - is back on the rails serving customers in London, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Kent.
The works were funded by rolling stock company Porterbrook, and completed by a dedicated team of Southern engineers who have been busy installing plug sockets, information screens, LED lighting, improved WiFi and a new digital ‘backbone’ to the train. The latter has helped speed up the repairs process meaning trains spend less time out of service.
At its peak, two trains were fully upgraded and returned into passenger service each week. All 304 trains required 280 km of wiring, around 39,000 LED lighting tubes,
36,000 power sockets (each with two USB sockets) and 2.8 million fixings and fastenings. The trains now feature plug and dual USB sockets at every seat, enhanced passenger information screens, with new digital screens at the end of each carriage, energy saving LED lighting and new technology to count the number of passengers on a train. The latter can be used to adjust and develop timetables to give people better services.
Behind the scenes, smart on-board data recorders and updates to the Train Data Network allow for improved remote monitoring of the train’s operational systems, which helps reliability and reduces the time trains spend out of service for maintenance or repair, as engineers can diagnose faults before the train's arrival. Forward-facing and track debris CCTV has also been installed on every train with the ability to remotely live stream and download images which aid in incident analysis and reducing future delays.
Project Aurora won the Fleet Achievement of the Year award at the National Rail Awards in 2023 for its efficiency, especially with such a huge scope of carriages to complete. GTR has the UK’s biggest fleet of Electrostars, operating between London, Surrey, Sussex and the south coast. The trains, all built at Derby Litchurch Lane works, also run on Great Northern and Gatwick Express routes.
Related news
- Alstom and FGC revealed the first Coradia Stream for the new express link to Barcelona-El Prat Airport
- "Aurora" in passenger service
- Electrostar's major door overhaul completed
- Alstom was awarded a new maintenance contract for Mälartåg trains
- GTR and Siemens Mobility update ETCS OBUs in Class 717s
- First refurbished Class 170 DMU of EMR into service
- Knorr-Bremse secures contract to overhaul sanitary systems for Class 390 Pendolinos